Cold Tea
by Liquid Laughter
Summary: She makes cup after cup, hoping the steaming liquid will calm her, clear her head, warm her, as it’s always been able to in the past. And cup after cup, she can’t bring herself to lift the vessel to her lips and pour the scalding liquid down her throat.


_Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to JKR. Except the song, which belongs to Blue October. _

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_Have you ever been so lonely,  
No one there to hold?…_

_It is not that I am scared to learn,  
Why I'm empty inside…  
I try to look at you  
But I can't stop shaking…  
I want to belong…to someone…_

_**************_

There's nothing more heartbreaking than a cold cup of tea, she muses silently to herself. She's sitting at the worn, beloved old table that has seen seven children born and raised and fed, been privy to hundreds, possibly thousands, of arguments and jokes and discussions and meals spent in comfortable silence. It's dark, and the only light she has to see by is the small, flickering flame of the candle next to her. She's still wearing her jeans and long-sleeved cotton shirt despite the late hour, but she's barefoot, and dimly she realizes that her feet are freezing.

Everything's been freezing lately. It's odd, she speculates detachedly, tracing a burn mark in the wood with a finger as the other hand cups her neck. Considering that it's summer, and all. But in spite of, or perhaps because of, the warm weather, she can't remember a time she's ever felt so cold. Perhaps it's all the tea she's been drinking lately. She makes cup after cup, hoping the steaming liquid will calm her, clear her head, warm her, as it's always been able to in the past. And cup after cup, she can't bring herself to lift the vessel to her lips and pour the scalding liquid down her throat. She sees faces swimming in the clear amber. Faces she knows she's not supposed to be seeing. She hears whispers echoing around the lip of the mug, escaping the sloping edges of the ceramic prison, tickling her ear with the soft hiss of the hot rising steam. And they're voices she recognizes. And the heat of the cup in her hands feels like the heat of skin on hers, like the warmth of hands that her hands have grasped and will never hold again.

And she can't bring herself to lift the cup.

She can't bring herself to waste the tea, either, so she sits there, cup after cup, until her tea turns cold and the faces no longer appear and the whispering voices die with the steam and the warmth turns cold. Then she drinks the tea, every last drop, and the chill spreads though her veins like ice, like the hushed whispers that she hears while the liquid is still warm.

It feels right, in a way. The cold. Because it would feel wrong to be warm and comfortable and happy when so much in her world is…_not_. And in a way, drinking that sad, dead tea, it feels like she's joining them, and it makes the gooseflesh settling over her body feel less like guilt.

She glances up at the window. He's out there. She can see him, in the moonlit yard. And even if she couldn't, she'd still know exactly what he was doing. It's the same thing he's done every night for the last month and a half. It's the same thing he does every night as she sits at that worn, tired, old table and battles the demons she finds in her teacup.

He's at the edge of the wide, dusty driveway, where the grassy hill starts. His back is to the silent house, for the most part; a sliver of his pale profile visible. He's on his knees, hunched over, clutching his stomach and rocking back and forth, as though he's praying, or cursing, or losing control, or trying very hard to hold on. His mouth is clamped shut and his eyes are wide open, because she knows that every time he closes his eyes he sees his worst nightmare and he can't decide whether he wants to curse or scream or cry or laugh. And she knows that he can't decide whether the wide expanse of darkness that surrounds him is too narrow to contain his grief, or so immeasurably large that he feels small, so very small because he's suddenly lost and surrounded by empty space where his other half once stood. And she knows that he'll stay there in that position until long after her one little candle has flickered out and her cold tea has been drunk and the bruised sky has healed to reveal the thin, pale pink breath of a new day.

Then, she knows, he'll slowly sit up and draw a deep shuddering breath, and suddenly he'll be gone. And she knows that even the crack that signifies his departure will lack the same noise and strength and vitality that it once contained, as though its potency has been cut in half. And she'll give a short, hysterical little laugh at the irony of this redundant realization, and her tears will fall into her empty tea cup. And Harry will come down the stairs quietly, not long after, as he always does, day after day, and pause on the last step, taking in her red eyes and pale countenance sadly and asking if she spent the night in the kitchen again, and isn't she tired?

And she'll nod, and say that yes, she's tired; she's so tired. And his eyes will grow soft and glazed, but he will hold her tightly, like he always does, and suggest a hot cup of tea. And her eyes will gaze out the window, at the spot where she knows she'll find him later that night once everyone else is asleep, and she'll say maybe later.

And he'll take her tea cup and turn towards the kitchen to wash it, and she'll sneak upstairs before Mrs. Weasley can catch her and half-heartedly scold her for going without sleep again, and her ears will be full of silky whispers and her thoughts full of a lonely, red-haired boy. And both are forbidden, because both mean feeling something other than detached, numb pain. And she'll lie down on her bed and try to close her eyes without the tears leaking out.

She knows all this. She's lived it for the last six weeks. And she knows that it has to change. Because if she has to feel her heart break one more time over cold tea and that beautiful, grieving boy, there won't be any more of her heart _to_ break. So that night as she sits, in the dim, flickering light of her candle, she'll take a deep breath and lift the heated cup in her pale, shaking hands and hesitantly take a sip. And the voices will still, just for a moment, as the warm liquid runs down her throat and her heart thrums with something other than ice for once. Then they'll start back up again, louder and more insistent than ever, and she'll have to set the cup down before it drops to the table because her hands are shaking so badly and her vision is swimming.

But instead of waiting for the warmth to fade and her tears to fill her cup – she knows Harry's been noticing – she'll stand up and quietly walk outside and fall to her knees next to him, with her arms thrown around him and her head leaning against his arm. And they'll both sit there, rocking gently, until morning comes and the soft, early light illuminates the country around them.

And for the first time in months she'll feel something other than cold, all because that beautiful, half-mad boy will put his arm around her and hold her to him gently, and her head will find the crook of his neck, and they'll sit there quietly and watch the sun steal across the sky.

And her cold tea will still be waiting, nearly full, on the worn old table for Harry to find it. But it's a start.

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End file.
